If
by MyMagentaPeach
Summary: RE-WRITE 2x06 NBK: Kurt does not run into Blaine at the Dalton staircase. They still meet though that day. But how?


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee.

**A/N: **This sort of happened when I set out to fill a prompt for _Between Friends_, and after about 600 words I realized, what I had written so far, it did not really fill the prompt. I loved the story idea too much though to not make something more of it than a document slowly wasting away in my Creative Writing folder. There are too many of those already, mainly original stuff I have no place to put. Anyone wanting to offer me a publishing contract?

No? Oh well, I'll just go ahead then and write some more fanfiction :)

Largely written by me because to me Blaine totally seems the type longing to help after he has himself been hurt badly, and because it is the way I feel myself, I don't want to be bitter, I want to be of help, and it is a struggle.

* * *

**If**

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It feels weird sitting there opposite the Asian boy _'Wesley?' _and his friend David.

At McKinley anyone outside of glee club hardly ever talks to him, lately not even anyone much in the club. So Kurt had felt utterly overwhelmed, having followed the stream of boys into the common room, when after a beautiful rendition of Nat King Cole's version of Smile, lead by the Asian boy now sitting in front of him, David and Wesley had after one glance at each other carefully approached him, with a soft "Hey," from Wesley and a "Wanna talk?" from David.

Kurt knows he must have burst into tears somewhere around the middle of the performance, but with Wesley and David right there he had really started bawling his eyes out. Why exactly? He is not positively certain himself.

So Wes had carefully looped one arm with Kurt's and some blinks later Kurt had found himself sitting here, at a round table with four chairs, hot coffee cup familiar warmth under his fingertips, warmth not reaching or spreading anywhere apart from those very tips of skin wrapped around fragile bone.

There is a scraping of a chair, and Kurt feels the impulse flicker to look up, but it ebbs away fast, is replaced by new dread, so Kurt closes his eyes instead of looking up, tries to take a breath that, shallow, just stings deep in his chest, his shoulders hunching further in the next moment.

"I'm Wesley, and the other boy is David. What's your name?" Wesley asks.

"Kurt."

"Kurt," Wes goes on, "what brought you to Dalton today?"

Kurt whispers, "So you know ..."

"... that you don't go here, yes. We are not that many pupil, new faces stand out. ... besides our headmaster is kind of obsessed with our school uniform, he would never allow a new student to start before he has been equipped properly," Wes answers.

When Kurt looks back up he sees he is alone with the Asian boy, "Wesley, right?"

The boy smiles at him, "Call me Wes."

"Wes," Kurt tries out a smile, but it won't stick. "Your singing was really beautiful."

"Thank you," Wes says with a proud and happy expression brightening his so far serious features. It is the little push Kurt needed without even knowing it.

"Can I ask you something?" Kurt asks, all the while thinking, '_He seems too kind to be real.'_

"Sure."

Kurt heaves a deep breath before, "Do you ..., do you have any students at your school who are, who are ... not in the closet?"

"You mean gay, and open about it," Wes clarifies.

It is a barely audible breath of air, "Yes, gay," an even smaller whisper, "... like me."

The look of fear manifesting in and dominating the sadness on Kurt's face has Wes's own face fall, and he realizes too late all the wrong ways Kurt is taking it in.

The other boy is already out of his seat, coffee still standing steaming on the table, "Kurt! Wait!"

But even though Kurt cannot possibly know where he is going he has already taken the first corner.

Kurt hears another faint, "Hey!" as he breaks through two students walking his way. It is laced with concern, but all Kurt can hear is anger, hate, bursting from every sound directed at him. He is too used to it, and yet there is never a getting used to it enough. His tears are too dense in his eyes for him to notice that one of the boys he just burst through was David.

Kurt is back in the parking lot and inside his car, doors locked and chest heaving, before he can even think about really breathing again. The sobs won't stop coming as he lies more than sits hunched over the steering wheel.

The tap at his window, no matter how light, has him jump in his seat. He looks up into a stranger's face, does not even notice Wes and David standing only a short distance away from his car as well.

There is no smile or frown on that new face, only sadness reflecting Kurt's own, and Kurt feels an inexplicable jolt of familiarity in the sadness in the strangers hazel eyes.

The boy outside the car makes a winding motion and mouths "Window."

Kurt finds himself reaching to open his car door before he even thinks a single clear thought, whispers a "Hi," once he has stopped biting his lip, having spotted Wes and David, aware how dramatic his actions just now must have looked.

Kurt feels shaky on his feet.

He thinks this must be close to what it feels like to have a heart-attack, when the stranger throwing himself at him somehow results in a tight hug. No one has ever hugged Kurt like this.

"What are you doing?" Kurt squeaks still fidgeting in Blaine's arms.

Kurt is used to being violently pushed away not being pulled in.

The boy is still holding him, "I'm Blaine. I transferred here to be safe. To feel safe."

And then it finally clicks in Kurt's head, "You're like me. You know how ..."

"I don't Kurt. I don't know anything yet, but we will change that, okay?" Blaine waits to feel Kurt nodding against his shoulder before he goes on, "But I think I understand, GOSH I hope I do. David and Wes got me to talk to you, I work for a teen helpline in my free time, so they thought ... But when I saw that look on your face." Blaine breathes in relief when he feels Kurt beginning to hug back, _'Finally.'_ It quenches some of the doubt inside him he might be doing this all wrong. It is so different standing there with the person, no plastic piece to clench tighter in your hand when the tension of a silence held a little too long for comfort becomes too much. There is no face to look at either, usually, and so with one look into the pained expression on Kurt's face Blaine had been unable to help reaching out.

Hugs may not end wars or famines or bring world peace, but Blaine firmly believes that hugs can help people hold on, hold themselves together for just long enough to get through the next burst of pain to come, no matter where from.

They just stand there for a while, holding on. Both.

Blaine finally takes a step back and with it one of Kurt's hands in his, "Did I freak you out?" afraid to leave the boy in front of him alone in the cold hard world of inner isolation too soon to leave some hope and love there with him, for him ... to come back to in his loneliest loneliness.

"Hugging?" Kurt asks, still trying to wrap all of his head around what just happened, why that boy ... that there is a boy holding his hand right now. "It hurts. I don't know. In a good way? Like I have missed it, without knowing there was something to miss. No one ever wants to ... touch me. Hold my hand."

Blaine nods, then "I know. I hope it wasn't too much. I know it was stupid and reckless."

"No!" Kurt protests.

"Yeah it was, not knowing you and all, but, Kurt, I know that look you had on your face."

"What look?" Kurt whispers, sinking his gaze to the ground.

Blaine swallows hard, looks down himself before he says, voice broken, "That look saying, I am going home and locking myself in my room and then I might just never ever come out again, because no one will care anyway if I ..., if I stop breathing altogether."

"Why?" Kurt whispers, squeezing the hand still holding on to his own.

"Bullying, beatings. All those bruises only I ever knew about. And no one cared. At least there was no one who ever told me if they did ... notice, or care. Until I ended up in hospital."

"What happened?"

But Blaine avoids, "My older brother started sending me here. And I met guys like Wes and David, who love that I love, encourage me to, and don't care who."

There are new tears in Kurt's eyes when the boys look back at each other.

Blaine squeezes his hand, "Hey, no. No need for that."

"No one ... no one there even ..."

"You have us now in your life," Blaine says waving David and Wes over with his free hand the other still tangled with Kurt's.

"Why?"

"Because being a Dalton boy, despite what our headmaster likes to convey, is not about wearing a certain uniform."


End file.
